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FTB (also, I guess, Skepchick?) must have done did it!

Duh. Because even if there is no evidence for this, the FreeThoughtSkepchickBlog (??) must be responsible for GirlWritesWhat getting DMCA-ed. Also, for starving kids in Africa. Oh yeah, skepticism, yeah.

Comments

This is the first time I’ve heard of her…I only watched a couple minutes because I could feel my brain cells beginning to die off.

She went from “a couple of DMCA claims filed and immediately cancelled” to “FTB IS TRYING TO SILENCE MEEEE” to “no they were just trying to make me panic BUT THEY RECKONED WITHOUT MY SUPERIOR INTELLECT!!” in that time. Impressive.

Is she a mind-reader? Her explanation of what whoever filed the false DMCAs was up to is plausible, but I see no reason to think it’s definitely correct. It’s also likely that they initially did intend it as an attack to take down her channel, then their better nature kicked in.

Yea its seriously irresponsible. Who knows it wasn’t a 12 year old just dicking around on youtube?

Its like when Rebecca Watson sees an anonymous comment on her blog that says “LOL U SUCK I HOPE YOU GET BUTTRAPED” and then takes a screenshot and presents it as evidence that someone intends to rape her.

“Could just as easily been some random 12 year old kid thinking they were funny as opposed to someone with an actual agenda.”

You mean, kind of like the twits who send rape threats to Rebecca Watson and Surly Amy? But wait, surely the latter is part of the Grand Misogynist Old Guard Pushback, and we all know everybody from the Harriet Hall to Justin Vacula to Russell Blackford share **collective responsibility** for these threats.

That would be a legit analogy if anyone was saying that false DMCAs are no big deal because they are just trolling, but I haven’t seen anyone say that. If Rebecca Watson had speculated that her rape threats were likely sent by Richard Dawkins based on a gut feeling only, she would be getting similar reactions. The criticism of GirlWritesWhat isn’t that she’s making too big a deal abotu false DMCAs. They are a legit problem. The criticism is that she’s doing public finger pointing based on nothing but speculation.

Great job taking note of the comment I was replying to when I said that, champ. The one about GWW’s accusation being pure speculation? Yeah, that one. My point was it could seriously have been anyone at all on the entire freaking internet up to and including a 12 year old kid with no agenda and no idea of the gravity of what they’re doing. But somehow, magically, GWW knows it was someone from FtB/Skepchick trying to make her panic but reckoning without her having read the fine print on Youtube.

But somehow, magically, GWW knows it was someone from FtB/Skepchick trying to make her panic but reckoning without her having read the fine print on Youtube.

Pray tell, how did you get “GWW knows it was someone from FTB/Skepchick” out of her actual statement – as per the video [@ 1:50] – that “… if it was someone affiliated with either FTBlogs or Skepchicks”? To assist you in that regard I should point out the assertive or categorical nature of “knows” as opposed to the contingent nature of “if” …. but, no rush; the student may avail themselves of the dictionary ….

Controversial speaker has dirty tricks used against her and you think it’s “just as likely” that she was randomly selected (and specifically by a 12 year old boy, no less) as it is that someone who opposes her was responsible?

It shouldn’t take a statistician to point out why one option is more likely than the other, but I guess today is your lucky day because I happen to be a statistician and i dont need to do any number crunching at all to know its highly improbable that this was a random attack at all, much less one committed by a 12 year old boy in particular.

“better nature”?
Uh.. Nooooooo. Filing fraudulent DMCAs is illegal and stupid (if you like getting summons to court, well good luck!) You can temporarily get a YouTube channel taken down due to false DMCAs, but you’ve just got your ass in pretty big trouble.

Wow. That just leaves my jaw in my lap. I imagine it’s easy for phrases like “gender traitor” to be too broadly applied, but if it doesn’t apply to someone who writes that it’s okay to beat women up because she might nag him and they can have good sex afterwards, I can’t imagine where it would apply. Staggering.

“Gender traitor” is a term tainted by its use by the Nazis to refer to homosexuals and transpeople. Maybe chillgirls? There are a quite a few of them about. My mother was one- she believes that men have the right to slap women around. Totally internalised misogyny helps her to feel superior to other women.

I gather you’re a founder of FTB — I would think you and Cristina and whomeever else at FTB might want to make crystal clear that FTB was in no way involved in attacking another website and in no way endorses or condones attacks made by any of its followers, and that in fact, should evidence ever appear indicating that a FTB reader was involved, that FTB would cooperate with any investigation or even prosecution.

That might be a better use of your time and do more to defuse the situation then just calling people gender traitors.

That just blew my mind!
Thanks Zinnia!
On her blog (http://owningyourshit.blogspot.be/) she has even more of such mysoginistic opinions.
I never really knew what they meant with ‘gender traitor’…now I do!
It also annoys me that she calls Cristina a ‘atheist-turned- feminist’. If ‘Girlswritewhat’ had done her homework she would have known that a) Cristina’s original video on feminism was posted 3 years ago and b) that Cristina started making videos on atheism and other subjects some 3 years ago….so if Cristina did ‘turn’ it was before her YouYube era.

I’m flabbergasted at how FTB/skepchick are seemingly responisble for everything bad in this world. If I fail my exams in 2 weeks..I know who to blame! Ha! 😉

Wow, just, wow. GWW pandering to misogynists batterers, I didn’t see that one coming.
Dos gww listen to herself as she tells that story? A detail specially bothered me: A couple with a baby in fights where one of them slam doors, scream and break things? Where is the baby at such moments? Is he/she sleeping soundly with all the commotion?

If that’s not dysfunctional I don’t know what is. Although I think she’s lying or omitting big chunks of that tale.

go to the source if you want to know what Girlwriteswhat says on this topic. Heavily edited content to make someone say something they did not say is not useful information. A quick check at her blog verifies this. I’m not trying to excuse her from her Skepchick/FTB suspicions just pointing out that the link you posted is not her opinion and your posting it as fact is sloppy at best. I expect better from the skeptic community.

The interesting thing about it is apparently it was the same bullies who complain about us (FtB and Skepchick) who apparently clued her in that we’re easy scapegoats, all because one of their own had posted copyrighted images and a DMCA request demanded that it be taken down. That’s what real skeptics do — draw connections between disparate events without evidence.

Jesus wept. No wonder people keep saying we need to calve off into our own community, to get rid of the intellectually incurious who love to claim the title of skeptic without ever having earned one whit of it.

That’s what real skeptics do — draw connections between disparate events without evidence.

That’s a bit of a hoot, particularly considering that Cristina made the highly questionable leap from “[FTB-Skepchicks] MAY have originated the DMCA” [1:50 in the video] to, apparently, “[FTB-Skepchicks] did, in fact with egregious malice aforethought and just to hurt our feelings, actually originate said DMCAs”. That is your standard for “what real skeptics do”?

Cool. Although one might suggest that that might be a tough sell in your new rebranding project ….

Sorry, don’t get the reference or connection. And Google isn’t helpful there either.

However, I suppose Cris could have been more charitable…and GirlWritesWhat could have been a lot less baseless insinuationist and what-not.

I’ll agree with you on the first part, but on the second I would argue that there is actually a very large amount of evidence – though I’ll concede largely circumstantial – on which GWW could have based her suppositions and hypotheses and conjectures. For instance, you might want to take a look primarily at my post here in this thread (#15.3.1.2), but there is quite good summary of the background over on Atheist Revolution.

Situation A: PRIVATE email list you had to be explicitly invited to to participate in. Your permission is explicitly revoked, and you exploit technological loopholes to regain access. Even when you had permission to READ the contents of the list, you did NOT have permission to disseminate the contents thereof.

Situation B: Person submits a comment to a public blog you manage. For whatever potentially debatable reasons, said comments are subjected to scrutiny. Said comments are reviewed much later, and then published in their entirety as a separate blog post. No additional identifying information is included. The information was initially submitted with the intent of being publicly read.

Most DMCA takedowns are crap autogenerated by the mechanisms put in place by sites to avoid dealing constantly with copyright maximalists from the content-distribution industry. (Who also manually file loads of false notices with impunity.)

I got a takedown notice for posting a video I made that contained sound from an advertising recording from a company that no longer exists and hasn’t for decades.

The notice was generated )I learned after much research) by a company that does nothing BUT issue takedown notices under contract.

In this case the contract was on behalf of a performer, and the company has issued DMCA challeges of videos of people themselves performing Bach compositions on their own guitars and pianos, because this one performer happens to have sold records of Bach music.

Seriously.
Most YouTube DMCA notices DO come from bots, and they can hit the strangest, most unrelated videos you could imagine.
It’s not unimaginable that a bot flagged this video and then a human whose job is to review the flags saw it was unrelated and removed it.

Or yes, it could be from a hater.

Without a lot of research and a lucky clue like I happened to get, it’s hard to know. You can suspect, you can suspect a whole lot and you can have a huge reason to suspect, and you can still be completely wrong.

– Misinterpretation and misrepresentation of an enemy’s videos, because we do not like what they are saying, is DoublePlusGood.

– And, even though Skepchick.org and FfTB bloggers and associated commentariat daily “draw connections between disparate events without evidence”, it is nonetheless a DoublePlusUnGood when done by the DoublePlusEvil, blasphemous, satanic enemy.

Okay.

It is always good to know where we all stand in this fascinating universe of vivid critical thought, florid skeptical analysis, and vivacious intellectual rigour.

Seriously now, are you people actually condoning a potentially false DMCA claim before the case has been resolved? Do you want to silence investigation just because ya’ll have a metaphoric hardon for Surly Amy? Judge and jury settling the case before the evidence has been presented? Seriously?

The “starving kids in Africa” was sarcasm; asserting as a statement of “fact” – as Cristina in effect did – that GWW said that FTB must be responsible was not – looks to me like a very large fib, at best.

“Mr Steersman you MAY be a mysoginistic sycophantic rape apologetic and IF this turns out to be true I’ll shit my pants of joy”

Would YOU like this?

The point is that Girlswriteswhat automatically seems to assume that that FTB/Skepchick is involved just because she has a strong dislike towards those blogs.

Girlswriteswhat shouldn’t be making any ‘leaps of faith’ when it comes to accusing people. When she truly has sound proof that the DMCAs came from FTB/Skepchick, only then is she allowed to ‘shit her pants with joy’ and point her gender traitor finger. Until then she needs to back off. There is a current ‘hate wave’ against FTB/Skepchick and Girlswriteswhat purposely threw more oil on the already smouldering fire…

“Mr Steersman you MAY be a mysoginistic sycophantic rape apologetic and IF this turns out to be true I’ll shit my pants of joy”

Would YOU like this?

Fine; go big – fill your boots. Here, let me help:

Yes, it is quite true that I MAY be all of those. And I MAY blow goats and I MAY sleep with the pigs and I MAY be the Queen of Sheba. And it MAY be true that Jehovah made the universe last Thursday and made it look far older just to mess with everyone’s mind.

But the point in all of that is that absent evidence you – and they, actually anyone asserting the truth of those statements – are just simply blowing smoke – being charitable. Which you, as an apparently card-carrying skeptic, should have imbibed with your mother’s milk ….

When she truly has sound proof that the DMCAs came from FTB/Skepchick, only then is she allowed to ‘shit her pants with joy’ …

Again, the point was that she did say IF the DMCA source is the case, and not that it IS the case, the latter being the problematic accusation from Cristina. You might want to take close look at the definitions for if and contingent:

if: conj.
1.
a. In the event that: If I were to go, I would be late.
b. Granting that: If that is true, what should we do?
c. On the condition that: She will play the piano only if she is paid.

contingent: adj.
1. Liable to occur but not with certainty; possible: “All salaries are reckoned on contingent as well as on actual services” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
2. Dependent on conditions or occurrences not yet established; conditional: arms sales contingent on the approval of Congress. See Synonyms at dependent.
3. Happening by chance or accident; fortuitous. See Synonyms at accidental.
4. Logic True only under certain conditions; not necessarily or universally true

I find this defense of GirlWritesWhat based on her throwing out ‘may’/’if’ without any apparent reason for suspicion, as if it’s not an accusation because of words like ‘if’. I’ve seen people accusing Greta Christina for being so cruel to the monopole guy at TAM, after all, just for reporting that people had suspected him of taking upskirt photos.

No, I don’t know if it’s the same people doing both. I just find the contrast amusing, in a twisted kind of way. That it’s apparently okay to publicly state someone ‘may’ have done something based on no evidence at all, but not okay to just report that an unnamed person had been accused.

That it’s apparently okay to publicly state someone ‘may’ have done something based on no evidence at all, but not okay to just report that an unnamed person had been accused.

Apart from the fact that the “may” was actually based on some solid if circumstantial evidence (#15.3.1.2), which is generally all that such evidence permits, it seems to me that Greta Christina did something, at least originally, quite a bit more than simply reporting “that an unnamed person had been accused”. Seems to me that she had – again, originally – asserted that the “monopole guy” was actually guilty of the charge and that she had then proceeded – in high dudgeon – on the basis that said accusation was actually true to castigate all and sundry for not having immediately publicly crucified the fellow:

Grothe was told that a male attendee of TAM had been using a camera on the end of a telescoping monopod to surreptitiously take photos up women’s skirts (UPDATE: Grothe was told that a male attendee of TAM was persistently harassing women even after having been asked to leave them alone multiple times, and was strongly and reasonably suspected of using a camera on the end of a telescoping monopod to surreptitiously take photos up women’s skirts) ….

Again, the very significant and crucial difference – which Christina eventually conceded – between, on the one hand, voicing a suspicion, tendering a hypothesis, based on entirely credible circumstantial evidence and, on the other, asserting and acting on the supposed truth of an accusation based on little more than hearsay in the way of evidence: one is the same evidentiary and due process on which our legal, if not scientific, system is based; the other is yellow-journalism and hysteria and mob-justice.

Some significant differences there I would say ….

But I’ll concede that one has to be a goddamned Philadelphia lawyer to track down all of this crap. But if we don’t make some effort to be at least half-assed skeptical then we’re more likely than not to go off half-cocked and shoot ourselves in the feet.

Jesus fuck. This again? Are you really gonna claim that some unnamed dude’s rights were violated because somebody who helped one of the women he harassed got confused about whether or not the security guards had actually confiscated his camera and confirmed the existence of the photographs? Even though the minute the confusion was clarified Greta corrected the mistake? Even though “accusing him” was actually not the point of Greta’s post at all (it was about Grothe’s claim that nobody had reported harassment at TAM)? Really?

Really?

(And yes, we do know he harassed people. We don’t know if he took, or intended to take, upskirt photographs, though.)

Yes, coming up with the names of those two networks out of the blue is not accusing them just because of the word “may”.
May I suggest that you take your head out of your ass now and you foot out of your mouth? Because that must be really uncomfortable.

Yes, coming up with the names of those two networks out of the blue is not accusing them just because of the word “may”.

Considering just the rather egregious efforts by Greg Laden – while he was a member of FTB, I might emphasize – and suggestions that the FTB Star Chamber was at least considering defrauding Thunderfoot of revenue from his blog while he was a member of that sainted, if oppressed, band of brothers and sisters (cis and trans), I would think that “out of the blue” has to be one of the more ridiculous and discreditable comments I’ve seen you make.

As for “not accusing them just because of the word may”, you may not have noticed that words, mirabile dictu, do actually tend to have some influence on the meaning of sentences in which they are found. In which case, the use of “if” and “may” means the sentences are not accusations – “charges of wrongdoing”, but only hypotheses – “…tentative explanations for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation” – with “a certain measure of likelihood or possibility”.

You might want to try thinking silently for a change before riding madly off in all directions; you know, “brain in gear” THEN “mouth in motion” ….

You may be a complete idiot, but your spelling is rather good for one. See, I didn’t call you an idiot!
You may or may not believe me, but I know rather well how language works, so I call bullshit on your statement that “may” completely negates accusation.

and suggestions that the FTB Star Chamber was at least considering defrauding Thunderfoot of revenue from his blog while he was a member

You’re really working this “I’m not actually saying things while I’m actually saying them” thing, don’t you?
“suggestions”?
YEah, so nobody actually said that or accused them of that (because that would be indeed something that would have to meet the burden of proof), but somebody “suggested” that they were involved in another set of criminal activities.

But:

I would think that “out of the blue” has to be one of the more ridiculous and discreditable comments I’ve seen you make.

So, what you have is ONE rumor about something FTB allegedly did (if it weren’t a rumor, it would have to be substantiated by evidence, but if it isn’t, why are you gullibly believing it?) and you think that’s justification enough to think that a second rumor (that they falsely DMCAed her) might have some facts behind it.
Do you notice what you’re still missing?
Yeah, facts.
Do you see who has to permanently fight off serious accusations of criminal conduct without any shred of evidence?
Yes, FTB
So, if enough bad rumors are spread about somebody without any facts ever coming to light, does that make the next rumor more plausible?
Let me use an example you might understand:

Considering just the rather egregious efforts by Pastor Jeremiah Wright– while he was a close friend of Barak Obama, I might emphasize – and suggestions that Obama was not actually born in the USA but Kenya, I would think that “out of the blue” (thinking that he may be a muslim) has to be one of the more ridiculous and discreditable comments I’ve seen you make.

It doesn’t fit perfetly, but, hey, that’s life?
So, do you believe that the suggestions that Obama was born in Kenya makes it plausible to think that he may be a mulim?

You may be a complete idiot, but your spelling is rather good for one. See, I didn’t call you an idiot!

Yes, that is quite true: I may be a complete idiot, although your comment about the spelling tends to reduce the “likelihood” of that possibility, that hypothesis. But it doesn’t completely “falsify” it as suggested by the phenomenon of idiot savants. However, I’m beginning to think that the hypothesis might be truer of you than me, given the additional evidence you are providing ….

… so I call bullshit on your statement that “may” completely negates accusation.

Says she, imperiously. Ergo, it IS bullshit? How’s that work with commanding the tides not to come in? Considering your claim to “know rather well how language works”, please do show me, by reference to various dictionaries and legal tomes and grammar encyclopaedias, the precise sequence, the evidence, as to how the “may” does not “completely negate accusation”. I’ve shown you mine, my evidence; you now have to show me, show “the court”, yours.

So, what you have is ONE rumor about something FTB allegedly did … Do you notice what you’re still missing? Yeah, facts.

Try chewing on these facts, although I kind of expect you’re not likely to find them all that palatable:

Ed Brayton on Major Changes at Freethought Blogs (notably the turfing of Greg Laden);
Jason – Lousy Canuck – Thibeault seriously discussing the case for “outing Franc Hoggle” – maybe Natalie Reed missed that when she signed on there;Thunderfoot’s Blog about FTB’s “Conspiracy to Defraud”; and, just to show you that I’m equitable about my hypothesizing,
Paula Kirby’s Sisterhood of the Oppressed.

And, to cut to the chase relative to the last, here is the money quote:

Finally, and delightfully ironically (given that later in the day we had people objecting to the “femistasi” term), Saturday saw someone on Twitter being harassed by one of the Sisterhood for having had the temerity to simply follow the decidedly unapproved @AngrySkepchick. Not even your “Follow” lists are now safe from the prying eyes of the Sisters, and be sure you will be subject to interrogation if your choices appear to deviate from the required standard!

Given evidence of such questionable morality, it doesn’t seem particularly implausible to suggest, to hypothesize, that someone associated, directly or peripherally, with those “communities” – some might suggest “a den of thieves”, but that might be somewhat uncharitable – might have had some responsibility for the DMCAs sent GWW’s way.

You might want to consider turning in your membership in “The Borg” ….

So, do you believe that the suggestions that Obama was born in Kenya makes it plausible to think that he may be a Muslim?

Yes, it is certainly plausible that he may – “to a certain measure of likelihood” – be a Muslim, even if the “measure” is quite low. And it is plausible that I may be a Holy-Roller and a devotee of the FSM and a Zoroastrian. But the question in each case is how much circumstantial evidence there is for the different claims, for the different hypotheses. And in the case of Obama I would say the evidence is greater on the side of the hypothesis that he is in fact, as he claims, a Christian.

Really rather amazing the extent to which people, particularly those who claim to be skeptics, fail to realize how much our arguments are based not on certainties but on hypotheses if not outright “just-so” stories ….

Really rather amazing the extent to which people, particularly those who claim to be skeptics, fail to realize how much our arguments are based not on certainties but on hypotheses if not outright “just-so” stories ….

I suppose that is to suggest that all of my arguments “are based not on certainties but on hypotheses …”?

Well, I notice that you didn’t actually provide any of the evidence or counter-arguments I asked for to refute any of my “hypotheses”. But maybe I missed a later post from you proving, based on voluminous citations from various dictionaries and legal tomes, that “may” and “if” categorically do not make a sentence less of an accusation.

However, in the more likely case that you couldn’t provide any such evidence, I have to conclude, tentatively speaking in any case, that you think that my hypotheses are more credible than yours.

Exactly. Further evidence of that being a recent Twitter post of hers:

So I guess it would be ok for me to say that you *may* be a rape apologist ? No, actually, it would not be ok.

She really does appear to think that saying someone “*may* be a rape apologist” is virtually identical to saying that they *are* one of those.

Maybe one might excuse that as “English-as-a-second-language”, but it certainly seems then that many others who should know better are just as “guilty” of that “crime” …. *may* have to put Paula Kirby – she of the “Grammarnazis” cohort – on her trail ….

In the English I’m familiar with it’s generally only acceptable to go around saying someone ‘may’ have done something if you actually have some sort of reason to believe they actually might have done it.
Because it is an accusation. Heck, in this comment thread there’s someone already trying to get Ed Brayton to state that FTB was not involved in those DMCA attempts – with no basis at all for the accusation. Even the Salem witch trials had a higher standard of evidence.

That is, there is some possibility, some measure of likelihood, that someone with some affiliations with the FTB-Skepchick community, whether an outlier or loose cannon or member of a “Star Chamber”, had something to do with those DMCAs. While it is certainly anything but a certainty, one might reasonably argue that some past, and present, actions by some in at least the FTB segment qualifies as some circumstantial evidence that tends to increase that likelihood or possibility.

There’s the key phrase you are overlooking. It is open to a wide range of interpretation! The more paranoid one is, the less “evidence” one needs to interpret something as “likely”. This woman, obviously, has some elevated sense of paranoia regarding FtB, hence yes, she is making an accusation.

In a case like this, such people hedge their bets by throwing in these qualifiers, in case they get shown to have been just wrong, they can then say, “But I only said they might have…” while their tone (usually strident and accusatory) says otherwise.

The dictionary to some is merely an abstraction. You shouldn’t get hung up on it…

Actually, seeing as FTB is involved in a witch-hunt against everyone they percieve to be “misogynists” – which I presume they’re using as newspeak for “everyone who doesn’t think men are damaged and broken women”, it’s not unthinkable to think they might be involved. Like, if a Jewish store got vandalized in Nazi Germany, MAYBE the Nazis had something to do with it… just sayin’

It may also very realistically be an overenthusiastic fan of FTB or Skepchicks, though it can be any number of people who both like Christina’s blog and doesn’t agree with GWW. I can see how GWW can come to her hypothesis, as I don’t see CR’s vlog as being unusually attractive for random feminists just cruising on by.

I’ve had a run in with this person before. She’s a loon. Not only is she the Tokyo Rose for the MRAs, but she believes in some crazy conspiracy shit. Feminists are responsible for EVERYTHING YO! She also likes to play fast and loose with the facts. A user by the name of Buntzums exposed her outright manipulation of studies and statistics and guess what? Buntzum’s video was DMCA’d. Of course this Hedda Hopper clone had nothing to do with it

‘Mr Steersman you MAY be a mysoginistic sycophantic rape apologetic and IF this turns out to be true I’ll shit my pants of joy’

Would YOU like this?”

There are some problems with your analogy. The first and most important being that it is almost impossible to prove or disprove such ultimately meaningless and ambiguous statements as “mysoginistic sycophantic rape apologetic” [sic] because it is based on unprovable opinion, not some kind of factual, real-world action; however, the real-world factual act of making a DMCA claim is absolutely provable.

Determining (proving) what is or is not “”mysoginistic sycophantic rape apologetic” is so variable as to be almost impossible to find universal consensus or agreement on.

Again, the act of presenting a DMCA is completely provable because it is not an opinion (although its content might be), it is an actual, real-world, provable action.

Anyway, to answer your question, speaking for myself, I can say that while I might not like such a stated supposition, there is no reason whatsoever to deny that someone be allowed to make such a supposition. One can always deny it (which, in the case of the DMCA, Surly Amy has yet to do — as far as I know; if she has unambiguously stated that she did not make the claim, provide a link to such evidence), and for the simple fact that it is, in the case of some real-world action like a DMCA claim, easy to disprove.

Which, it must be noted again, Surly Amy has not done.

A link of interest (add your own http stuff): elevatorgate.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/revealed-the-sender-of-the-dmca-notices/)

I can not claim for the content being true or false, but it is worth looking at.

It really is disturbing to see to what degree most of the FfTB bloggers and associated commentariat have forsaken actual critical thought and actual skepticism for in-group praise and us vs. them enemy creation and vilification.

Whether or not GirlSaidWhat is a loon, or justinvacula is a vacuous shitbag (ah, me-oh-my such maturity in the name-calling used by supposed intelligent adults, eh?) is irrelevant.

Whether or not their suppositions that someone at either FfTB or Skepchick made a false DMCA claim should be of the utmost importance to you folks, because, if true, it paints a very ugly picture of the kind of tactics FfTB and/or Skepchick.org people will go to try and silence, or find real-world data on, someone with whom they disagree.

That should be the real concern of people like Cristina, and the rest of you: not a bunch of juvenile name-calling and vilification of your supposed enemies, but research to prove or disprove such claims.

So, all we have is GWW’s ramblings, wildly accusing people of criminal activity without any evidence and suddenly FTB should be on the defensive and prove themselves innocent of the accusations, something obviously impossible (or only possible at a very high cost, like probably filing charges against GWW for slander or something. Which then would, of yourse, be evidence against FTB) because that’s obviously Skepticism, slime-pit version:
1) The one who makes the claim has to provide nothing but vague accusations.
2) The accused has now to provide evidence that they didn’t do it.

Giliell, however much you may wish it were not true, saying someone might have done something is not an accusation, it is a supposition; a statement of possibility. And in the case of the ongoing mendacious behaviour of many at FfTB and Skepchick.org, it is a valid supposition to suppose that someone from either of those communities might have launched a false DMCA simply to shut someone up.

And anyway, for all that, GirlWritesWhat did not even go that far. She said she would be happy if it turned out that the source of the DMCA was someone from FfTB or Skepchick.org. That is not any sort of accusation at all; it’s not even supposition.

In typical fashion, you are playing fast and loose with language and reality. The only people making any actual claims are you folks here at FfTB, by claiming that GirlWritesWhat claimed that someone from either FfTB or Skepchick.org launched the DMCA, which, in point of actual fact, GirlWritesWhat did not do. She made no accusation; no claim of responsibility; no supposition.

On the other hand, justinvacula speculated that Surly Amy was probably responsible for the DMCA launched at him, and if that site I linked to is valid, then Vacula’s claim is justified. And, again in typical fashion, you appear to ignore the probable evidence and the simple fact that to date Surly Amy has not denied any involvement with launching a potentially false DMCA.

“… all we have is GWW’s ramblings, wildly accusing people of criminal activity without any evidence.”

Except that she did no such thing. I know you have some real challenges doing so, but try to stick to the facts.

One of the constant perfunctory processes followed here at FfTB, and one of which you, Giliell, are a star, is the mendacious misrepresentation of other people’s words and statements. And that is precisely what you are doing in regards to GirlWritesWhat’s YouTube video.

Lastly, how about you answer this: While you baboolies are howling long and loud about the evils of GirlWritesWhat and justinvacula getting angry over potentially false DMCAs (potentially false DMCAs that you folks nonetheless seem to feel are justified and therein show you are quite comfortable with illegal actions designed to shut people up for simply having opinions you diagree with), why haven’t any of you raised the roof over Surly Amy’s copyright and trademark infringing abuse of Pacman iconography? Hmmm?

It is pretty funny that you posit that as some kind of argument, in that in point of actual fact, the accused is GirlWritesWhat, and you lot are demanding that she provide proof for a counter-claim that she never even made.

Bunch of hysterical hypocrites, the lot of you.

And not that it matters much, but I don’t even know what Mission Farpoint.

And as for you juvenile comment following dave’s comment: derail much; off-topic much; non sequitor much? More patented Giliell behaviour: derail, derail, at all costs, derail.

No. Because John Greg is an A-. You don’t get to have an honest and fair converstion with a known troll and a misogynist whose still seems deluded in thinking of himself as a skeptic. It just ain’t going to happen.

“Could you have an honest conversation without the “FfTB” crap or calling EVERYONE “hysterical hypocrites”.”

Well you are quite right on one point, to wit, I should not call everyone an hysterical hypocrite. That sobriquet applies only to a small majority of the FfTB bloggers, and a somewhat larger majority of the FfTB commentariat.

As to the other point, no, I will not stop calling this network of angry, juvenile, ignorant, and free-of-world-experience and reactionary blogs FfTB (as meaning FreefromThoughtBlogs), simply because, in my estimation, that is a precise and accurate titulary description.

Utakata kind of proves my point. Uki, Honey, please prove, either via citation, or quotation, or any other form of actual evidence, the following claims:

“John Greg is an A-.”

What does that actually mean, Darling?

“You don’t get to have an honest and fair converstion with a known troll….”

The word Troll, in the FfTB universe, means nothing more nor less than someone who disagrees with an FfTB adherent, or someone that an FfTB adherent does not like. Ahem. Prove otherwise, oh wise Ukelele.

“… and a misogynist.”

Um, specifically, how am I a misogynist?

I vociferously condone and promote equality between women and men; I adhere to and support equal wages for equal work; I condemn rape (of any gender); I condemn prejudical and dismissive bias based on superficial gender definitions … and so on and so forth. Is that sexist? Is that Misogynistic? C’mon you mighty warrior of truth, define for me specifically how and why I am a misogynist.

“… whose still seems deluded in thinking of himself as a skeptic.” [sic]

I am far more of a skeptic than you, for the simple fact that I question claims and statements of anything that lacks supporting evidence. Whereas, the majority of the FfTB and Skepchick.org looneys just swallow the greasy cum of anecdote (especially as spewed by R. Watson and the FC5) as reality.

“I am far more of a skeptic than you, for the simple fact that I question claims and statements of anything that lacks supporting evidence. Whereas, the majority of the FfTB and Skepchick.org looneys just swallow the greasy cum of anecdote (especially as spewed by R. Watson and the FC5) as reality.”

As for the fact that you don’t know me from squat, as opposed to you leaving a paper trail of being banhammered, you surely cannot make that claim. But I need not to sourse, when the proof of what I claim is right there in the pudding of your reply many times over. No seriously rational person would ever use “FfTB” for example. And of course the illict use of of emotional ques to get me riled…this is not reason, that’s trolling, lol “darling”. But you “don’t get to wallow gleefully in a cesspit of misogyny for months and months, bleating about ‘twats’ and ‘cunts’, and then show up here and gloat at the thought you’ve spotted a smudge,” as PZ Myers classically said of you. Thus I don’t feel I have the stomach to go over to the Slimepit of quote your *ahem* “enlightened” positions on equality.

That being said, perhaps I should add somethings of worth myself instead delurking to bash trolls everytime they rear their ugly heads and going back into lurcking mode again. And admittedly I’ve gotten lazy because many a good persons have said what I’ve always wanted to say, but soo much better. But this gets tiring and troublesome after awhile…

…so here’s something. You can always decide to change and be a better person, and help move this world to be a better, progressive and equal place. Instead wasting your energies chasing after this fictitious phantom of “FfTB” that doesn’t exist outside of your imagination.

I note you quote PeeZus’s reasoning on why he sent me to his Dungeon. What you might, or might not, be interested in knowing is that I never, ever called anyone a cunt or a twat — oh, wait, I once, and once only, called R. Watson a cunt — and that his description of my supposedly spotting a smudge referred to his blatant and ludicrous lies and distortions in the thread. Regretably, I cannot link to that stuff because PeeZus, the hero of rational reasoned discourse, deleted literally everything I posted on his blog of lies.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA: “I don’t feel I have the stomach to go over to the Slimepit of quote your *ahem* “enlightened” positions on equality”. [sic]

Of course you don’t have the stomach to participate in the endless Slymepit free discussion: honest discussion and debate, without deletion and censorship, and other forms of dialogue control, hurts you people more than a red hot rusty razor blade.

Lastly, as is more than typical of FfTB bloggers and FfTB commentariat, you failed to answer the most important questions (that hilariously stupid JasonTidybowl also failed to answer these):

“I vociferously condone and promote equality between women and men; I adhere to and support equal wages for equal work; I condemn rape (of any gender); I condemn prejudical and dismissive bias based on superficial gender definitions … and so on and so forth. Is that sexist? Is that Misogynistic?”

Naming FTB/Skepchicks wasn’t very fair-minded of GWW. It ranks pretty low on the list of internet offenses, though. It’s not like many of her viewers weren’t already thinking of exactly those groups as suspects.

Whoever dmca’ed her (possibly to get her personal info) is very likely to be an overzealous feminist, btw. If you’re thinking to yourself right now, “feminists can’t be zealous enough,” let me direct you back to the previous sentence.

Those FTBullies again, quoting somebody with sources on their views. That’s sooooooo unfair.

Let me try this, too

About a statement that includes this sentences:

Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.

she says:

I don’t really find too much in the article that strikes me as seriously ethically questionable. DV isn’t pretty but neither is this article

(I still don’t know what the last sentence is supposed to mean.)
When asked specifically to clarify if she thinks that hitting the woman once in a while is OK she says:

That’s pretty much it. I think it would also be good for women to take boxing or karate or some other training … (because) that would demonstrate to women that getting hit isn’t going to break them into pieces

Read the news. Thousands of videos have been DMCA’d by faulty filtering software in YouTube the past few months, YouTube has admitted it and promised a fix.

There’s more evidence of THAT being the cause than feminists or FTBers or whatever else.

Might also explain why the DMCA blocks were immediately removed.
Google has announced that due to the filtering software errors, they are having real live people review DMCA complaints and reverse incorrect ones.

Duh. Because even if there is no evidence for this, the FreeThoughtSkepchickBlog (??) must be responsible for GirlWritesWhat getting DMCA-ed. Also, for starving kids in Africa. Oh yeah, skepticism, yeah.

GWW has excellent ground for suspicion but not accusation in that she has obviously pissed off a lot of people around here and, considering that she was immediately harassed after doing so, would have to have both a heart and head of stone not to be think that there is a genuine malfactor lurking somewhere among you good, intellectually superior people. GWW clearly never reached anything resembling a definite conclusion–that is to say accusation–and if I’m wrong about that I would greatly appreciate it if someone be kind enough to quote her accusation directly.

I must say that a lot of people here don’t seem to understand the difference between a reasonable suspicion and a wildly unfounded one. It’s perfectly reasonable to speculate that someone is a child molester if there has been some known molestation (venereal diseased boy with unexplained anal trauma) and you do indeed have good reason to suspect someone (single, childless man down the block who has more than once volunteered to baby sit and did so once during an emergency). If, on the other hand, you decided that you must have been molested as a child and that daddy did it with mom’s help when not busy eating fetuses for Satan because you were stupid enough to read “The Courage to Heal” w/o using good critical thinking skills that’s an entirely different story now, isn’t it?

As soon as someone thinks of a plausible reason to suspect GWW of being a child molester I certainly hope they share and don’t cheat us all by hiding it. That wouldn’t be cricket.

I haven’t seen the video that was taken down, but if she was using the photo to comment on the people in the photo instead of the photo itself, it isn’t fair use and Amy was within her rights to file the claim, presuming she is the one who did so.

I don’t have any more information than what this woman has provided in this video. She may or may not have additional information that she chose to withhold. So, I can’t say whether she has sufficient or just cause to be so deeply suspicious of FTB or Skepchick.

Also, I have yet to witness (or recall witnessing) any intellectual dishonesty in her earlier videos (though, admittedly, I’ve only seen a handful of them in the past). So I also have no evidence to suggest she’s lying or baiting here, either.

But what I can say, for sure, is that I don’t understand the wisdom of airing channel attack dramas publicly — whether it’s GirlWritesWhat, or ThunderF00t, or whomever — and, I’m getting pretty disgusted and disheartened by the fact that the internet atheist community is no longer talking… about ATHEISM.

All the major voices are spending what seems like to me most of their energy on “who said what to whom”, “who did what to whom”, “who meant X when they said Y”, “who is or isn’t a misogynist”, “who is or isn’t being honest”, “who drank what from where at what party”, “who smoked what at whose house”, and on and on.

On the one hand, I just want to shout, “GROW UP, PUT ON THE BIG BOY PANTS, AND GET BACK TO ATHEISM.”

But on the other hand, I also can’t help but find myself morbidly fascinated with WHY. Why is it that one angry woman (she may or may not be justifiably angry, I don’t know, and I doubt I ever really will) has literally dismembered this entire community? What is the underlying psychological trigger at play here? Why isn’t anyone in this community able to either negotiate with this woman, or dismiss her (whichever is appropriate)? Why are the men especially at each others’ throats so aggressively? Why has this gone on, and on, and on, for over a year and a half? What is really going on here? Why is nobody else in the atheist community asking the question WHY?

I don’t really have much of a credible answer to this question. I’m not a psychologist, a family therapist, or social expert of any kind. So, anything I might offer would rightly be dismissed as the nonsense of a layman. But isn’t there anyone with any kind of skill at looking at these questions who IS looking at them? Where is Harris? Pinker? Anyone? Why aren’t the leaders in this community taking a more studied look at what is going on here?

What “one angry woman” are you talking about? Rebecca Watson? Do you think “Guys, don’t do that,” was angry?

Of course, since then, having been harassed and cyberstalked for over a year, she probably is quite angry. At least, anger would be a normal reaction to such obsessive hate. You don’t need a “a psychologist, a family therapist, or social expert of any kind” to tell you that.

And, of course, at this point a great many women, and men, are angry as well. Again, an understandable and normal response to the misogynistic bullshit people like Greg and GWW are spewing.

Why are the men especially at each others’ throats so aggressively?

This strikes me as a very odd thing to say. You don’t seem to be at all concerned about the aggressive attacks on the women in the community.

But you seem to think we need some male leader to analyze and explain it.

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